


Croatoan

by IncurableNecromantic



Category: Over the Garden Wall (Cartoon)
Genre: Enoch is very into community-building, Enoch's first language is a tactile dance-language, Gen, Gore, Other, hand stuff, he's very glad that the Beast is settling down, nerdy Bible references, or so he thinks, some stuff just might be getting lost in translation, the Beast's first language is scent-based, warlocks man am I right?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-02
Updated: 2015-03-02
Packaged: 2018-03-15 22:06:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3463778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IncurableNecromantic/pseuds/IncurableNecromantic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes mortals are willing to worship.  Sometimes the gods are not willing to cooperate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Croatoan

‘Croatoan,’ they wrote on the tree. It was their key and their cipher, the center of their story, and the others would know it when they found it. They turned their backs on their township and took their first steps into the unknown, seeking the end of their story in a place far from blighted Roanoke.

After many days of walking, they found a glade near a stream and chopped down the trees, and built their houses and a small church.

They lived in the forest of the wintry North for many years. They fought back against the elements and waited for a spring and summer that always seemed so very late in coming. They lived.

In the eighth year of the settlement of New Roanoke, the rumors began to run around. It started, as these things always do, with the testimony of a child.

“Mama,” said Thomas Ireton, the smallest of the Iretons. He had been born in New Roanoke and had never known the other village or, in this his fourth year of life, even the warmth of a blooming Spring. “I heard something singing in the woods.”

“Only the wind, Tom. Lay down your head and go to sleep,” his mother, Elynoer Ireton, said. She fluffed his pillow and kissed him.

But it was not the wind that sang in the woods, and soon they all came to know it. Whatever it was, it wasn’t human. The frozen nights would crack apart anything that dared to breathe out of doors; they’d found horses left out of the barn frozen to death some mornings. Nothing with earthly bones and sinews could find the strength to sing.

“The voices we hear should but strengthen our faith,” Parson Dixon declared on Sunday. “Whether they come from the mouths of the children or our elders. We hear God’s creatures moving around us in the world. The messengers of the Lord pass us in their celestial duty, and it is not for us to know, but only to wonder, at the mysteries of this limitlessly wonderful earth.”

That was all well and good, but it was hard to be convinced with this reckoning. Aye, fire and brimstone could get one far, and the angel had said “Do not be afraid” for a reason: they knew of the six wings and the flaming eyes as well as anyone could. But this was like no angel anybody had ever heard of.

Old Blackwell--whom everyone knew was come from warlock stock back home--had some books on the subject. Between the third and fourth drink at the meeting-house, bought for him by curious young men, he tended to commence to grumbling.

“It’s the devil in those woods,” he said. “Old Scratch himself. I seent him. Bellarin’ out in the forest and a-carrying the light of the damned on his crooked horn. ‘Tis the Black Man of the Woods, who bartered souls with the red men afore we set foot here.”

“Bartered for what?”

Blackwell shrugged and wiped his moustache on his hand. “Name it. Power. Money. Jewels hidden beneath the earth, and fairy maidens for brides.”

Parson Dixon sniffed to hear this kind of talk whispered among the young people of his congregation.

“Perfectly ridiculous,” he said, tossing his head. “What heathenish nonsense! God would not lead us into the hands of the enemy so easily and we must have faith that we are deep in the intricacies of his perfect design. Mister Blackwell would be wise not to spread such rumors.”

Blackwell only grinned and leered at the parson’s disdainful expression, and bent himself to his books.

The voice sang in the woods at night, and sometimes wary fathers and sleepless mothers would watch in the dark, catching inconstant glimpses of what might be only the moon within the trees. It was only a matter of time, truly, before things became odd.

It was little Meek Stringer who was the first to go. She never did live up to her name, far too lively a curiosity burning in her breast, and two months after her disappearance, Parson Dixon made mournful reference to it in her eulogy. There was no way the little one could be alive, and they were unlikely to find the body.

The woods were quiet for a few months, but then the voice came back. Thomas Ireton and Virginia Stretcher were the next to disappear, although no one knew if they were enchanted or if they were dragged. Either way, no one doubted that the voice was responsible.

Parson Dixon tried to preserve unity, preaching strength and faith in the face of fear, but there were too many rumors of witches and demons. In the night, the woods rang with song, and the men of the town met to talk.  They made a decision, and the next day a party of five went out to hunt down the voice.

Not a one came back.

Wives cried in the darkness. Children wandered about, asking where papa was. Some of the younger men talked of moving away, and the elders cautioned against striking out before the long-awaited spring.

“We can’t wait that long!” Ezekiel Harper snapped, slamming his hands against the wooden meeting-house table. “There hasn’t been a true thaw in years! We cannot just wait in the dark for that thing to swallow us whole!”

“We have children and old women to think of,” Cutbert Trevor replied. He folded his gnarled hands on the table. “We cannot move so hastily. We must wait a little longer for the sun.”

“The sun will never come!” Ezekiel snarled. “And no matter what hare-brained Dixon says--”

“We are all in agreement, Harper,” Humfrey Moreton interrupted, “that whatever is in the woods is not an angel.”

Parson Dixon listened to this conversation as he passed the meeting house towards home. Little Robert Foster had disappeared not a day after the band of five went out, and old Joan Wicker with him.

Truly, Parson Dixon did not blame the people for their waning faith.

He turned and followed his own footsteps back through the snow to the house of Mister Blackwell.

“Sir,” he said, when Blackwell answered his knock. The old warlock-spawn grinned with blackened teeth and held the door open wider.

Parson Dixon’s mouth twisted and he stepped inside.

They stayed up every night that week, digging through their libraries. The threads connecting Parson Dixon to his soul began to fray and he clenched his jaw against the strain as he bent over Blackwell’s blasphemous books and searched for a weapon, but when dawn came they were no closer to a solution.

“Parson,” Blackwell said the next night, as he held forth a knife. “If ye’d be so good.”

Parson Dixon looked up from his book and eyed the knife with distaste. “What is it, Blackwell?”

“Only asking you to live Christlike,” the old man replied with a nasty smile. He pricked his finger with the point of the blade and squeezed his blood out onto the knife.

“What,” the parson asked.

“Don’t ye want to bleed a little for your flock?”

Parson Dixon lurched away. “I will not let my blood for your rites,” he snapped. “Put that blasphemous thing away.”

Blackwell shrugged and licked his knife clean. The night went on silently, the air between them crackling with angry electricity. Parson Dixon left Mister Blackwell’s home at first light.

Ambrose White, not seven years old, was gone.

That night, Parson Dixon appeared at Blackwell’s house with a knife of his own.

Their blood mingled on the blade and Blackwell had Dixon hold it while he fetched something from the other room. The man came back with a rooster and took the knife, mumbling under his breath as he sliced the bird’s head off and cleft it from nape to groin. Its guts spilled out of the table, warm and steaming, and the old warlock prodded them here and there, murmuring to himself.

Parson Dixon silently prayed.

Blackwell looked up, eyes alight with unholy inspiration. “Bring the green-wrapped tome yonder.”

The next night, the moon rose--the true moon, it bore mentioning--and Parson Dixon put on all his coats and every pair of socks he could fit in his boots. He filled a lantern with oil and lit it, and with his hat upon his head he walked out into the frozen night.

Blackwell was waiting for him in the town centre. His eyes gleamed wetly in the moonlight and he winked.

Parson Dixon tightened his jaw and they got to work. In the darkness of the night they stopped before every door, painting the red mark from the green tome on the wood and sealing each house against the thing in the woods.

They waited at the edges of the wood, huddling close for warmth, and began to move only when they heard the singing.

The voice bounced and gamboled through the woods, singing the nightmare hymn. Far away in the trees, a false moon moved through the darkness.

“All right, Parson,” Blackwell said. “Here we are.”

“Hm.”

“Keep your nerve.”

“God bless you, Mister Blackwell,” Parson Dixon grumbled.

They advanced into the forest.

The roots were gnarled and rolling beneath their feet, hardened like frozen veins beneath the thick skin of snow. Beneath the moon’s indifferent light they trudged towards the glow in the woods, passing branchless trees with pale bark peeling and flaking away, the living sap stilled by the terrible frost. They slipped on patches of treacherous ice and tore their numb fingers against the trees. In the dim white light they could see their breath more clearly than they could feel it in their lungs, and beneath the ever-nearing singing they could hear the dismal creak of half-dead timber shifting in the night.

Parson Dixon nearly twisted his ankle on a root--a certain death sentence--but Blackwell moved more nimbly than the other man would have imagined possible.

At last they were within sight of the singer. In the desolate air the voice was loud enough to split their ears, and they peered fruitlessly out into the dark, trying to connect the hollow, beamless light above their heads with a body.

It was Parson Dixon who spotted the outline of an antler against the grey skin of a tree, and he nudged Blackwell with a numb elbow. He pointed and felt Blackwell huff a cold breath of confirmation.

The singing stopped, one song completed.

Parson Dixon swallowed against the cold that had lodged itself down his throat, and spoke.

“Demon!” Parson Dixon barked. It was a bark, too, raw and cracking like an animal’s voice. “Beast or fiend! We have come to meet you.”

The light turned, but it did not shine on them. Two points of dead light stared down at them, and Parson Dixon knew that this was certainly what had taken parts of his flock.

The hollow lights stared, and did not move or blink.

Parson Dixon swallowed again. “We will not permit any more loss of life,” he pronounced. “In the name of Jesus Christ Our Lord, we rebuke thee, demon, and banish thee from our land!”

When the voice finally spoke, it sounded like it came from a long way away, like the roots of the trees were talking.

“Your land?” the voice said. It spoke English. Somehow Parson Dixon felt it would have been easier to bear, perhaps, if it had just been silent. To hear English, and not the language of Hell or even Latin, when one was lost in the woods a world away from England? There was something terrible in it.

“This is not your land,” the voice went on. “You cannot hold it. You are nothing but dust, mortal.”

Parson Dixon shuddered.

“Even so!” he replied, holding his courage in both hands. “No more loss of life. You cannot take our children! You cannot destroy our town!”

“Can’t I, now?” the voice hummed.

Blackwell shoved forward and pushed the parson aside. Half-dead with cold, Parson Dixon lurched against a tree, momentarily escaping a death in the snow against the trunk.  He stared at Blackwell, agog.

“I have no such pride,” Blackwell announced. “I want to make a deal, Black Man!”

The two lights shift, and the false moon dips low; the voice has tilted its head.

“A deal?” the voice asked. It sounded nearer, now. “You presume to deal with me?”

“I know ye trade souls for riches,” Blackwell said. “I want to make a deal.”

“Blackwell--” Parson Dixon tried.

“Shut your gob, ye snivelling coward,” Blackwell growled. “Black Man! Will ye trade with me?”

The voice stood very still for a few moments.

“I think I want to make a deal with the both of you,” it said.

The night grew terribly dark.

***

Old Blackwell returned to New Roanoke as the mayor and ruler, and had the crucifix burnt and the inside of the church walls sprayed with pig blood, and he claimed three wives of the most beautiful girls in town, and had a grist mill built, and led the whole village in the new Sunday rites.

Parson Dixon returned with a broken heart and a lantern that was not his own.

They got almost five or six good years out of the arrangement with their new god.  He kept the air cold enough to crack their lungs, but He took no more of the children and they began to think that perhaps this was not a terrible decision.  Babies were born, marriages were made, elders died.

But not Old Blackwell.  He would never die.

One day, Blackwell announced that they had to start making sacrifices.  

They agreed, used to sacrificing for God.  Fasting, perhaps?  Another kind of Lent?  They all participate in a Eucharist on Sunday, although it's not the same as it was before.  What kind of sacrifice was appropriate for their Black God in the Woods?

Old Blackwell grinned with his black teeth and shook his head gently.  No, no, nothing like that, he assured them.  No bread or wine.  This was a real god that they had protecting them.  

Real gods, Blackwell said, throwing something of Parson Dixon's down at the feet of the congregation, wanted flesh and blood.

***

The idea was very simple, on the surface of it. His main fuel source and main frustration were wrapped up in one thing: mortals. If he could turn mortals on each other instead of on himself, surely he could maximize the fuel and minimize the aggravation.

So far it was working splendidly. He didn't even have to keep an eye on it, or have any contact except with his lantern-bearer. 

The Beast walked past an Edelwood tree, very nearly ripe for harvesting, and plucked a black turtle out of its roots. He absent-mindedly cracked its shell against the hard wood of the tree and split the little animal like an egg, sucking its warm meat out before chewing up its hard shield.

It wasn't often that he ate with his mouth, but he was feeling rich and indulgent today. This turtle had been full of suicidal daydreams. Sometimes they were murderous fantasies or obsessive fixations, douleur or ennui or sometimes simple, sudden, adrenaline-sharp terror.

Mortals had a similar thing, or would at some point, he was sure. Beans, made into a paste with sugar and then a solid, and then shaped and filled. Something.

The word escaped him. Little matter.

A light approached him in the evening dimness. He recognized it, and the fragrance behind it--wet wool and mud and human skin.

The hollow-eyed little parson walked effortlessly over the snowy ground. Poor thing seemed to be given up grey and gone straight to white, and he had been so dark just a little while ago.  He was thin as a skeleton, his eyes sunken into his face.

The Beast smiled.

“Parson Dixon,” he murmured. “That light is burning bright.”

The mortal looked down at his hand and at the fingers that were curled around the handle. Whether from stress or distress over the years, the fingers had clenched and stuck and were now unable to unbend from around the handle.

It was just as well. The parson hardly needed his left hand.

The parson’s head rolled back up to face the Beast.

“No conversation?” the Beast asked, genuinely wondering. “I’ve always enjoyed our talks.”

The parson opened his mouth very wide. Curious, the Beast peered into the orifice.

Ah, yes! Mortals usually had a muscle there, didn’t they?  It helped them talk.

“Did Blackwell do this?” he asked.

The parson gave him a stare.

“You’re quite right,” the Beast murmured. He was going to have Blackwell by the hamstrings for this. “Who else could it be? I’ll handle him, Parson Dixon, rest assured of that. I don’t like it when people hurt my servants.”

Parson Dixon tilted his head in a little shrug and retrieved a piece of paper out of his threadbare waistcoat. He passed it to the Beast and waited, watching him.

The Beast had made a little effort once upon a time to learn to read, and it came in handy now.

_From Pottsfield, at half-filling moon._

_My excellent neighbor,_

_Can you get post where you are? I entrust this to one of my sentinels and perhaps a merchant passing in your Woods, and we shall see if it gets down to your lantern-bearer and you._

_I write only to inform you that I think I have something of yours. Perhaps you’ll be so good as to come by and collect it._

_I commend to your care this letter written in the elegant hand of Miss Clara Deen, and wish you and all yours the very warmest of tidings._

_Enoch_

The paper smelled of woodsmoke and a faraway scent of maple syrup on the air.

“Very interesting,” the Beast remarked. He folded the paper up and tucked it away in his fur. “Parson Dixon, I will resolve your issue with Blackwell as soon as I return.”

Parson Dixon shifted his head left and right, indifferent, and turned away, back towards the settlement.

The Beast headed for the autumn lands, and for many leagues did not know that he was being followed.

***

It was night in Pottsfield when he crossed the fields towards the barn. He had made this journey often enough that he hardly needed the cinnamon, copper scent of the town to guide him.

All he had to do was think of Pottsfield and follow the inclination of his souls.

It was an embarrassing little secret, something he liked to keep very quiet. But no matter how little he thought about late August and how much his lantern-bearers and Edelwoods kept him busy, no matter how still and silent he tried to keep his component parts, all it took was the merest whiff of molasses to get them all pointing to Pottsfield truer than a compass towards North.

He didn’t blame them, no. Pottsfield woke them up, probably in just the same way it woke up Enoch’s people. With what muted and pathetic consciousness they still had, the last desire his souls had was to rest forever. It made sense. Mortals were flames, each one eating up wicks and wood and houses, and dreaming of becoming smoke one day. They never expected they would have to become unfed light, but that lantern could only keep the one of them going, and he had seniority.

And with that seniority came control. Just because they all ached to be in a place where death meant peace and joy didn’t mean that they were powerful enough to push him where it wasn’t in his interest to go. No point in having dogs to pull a sledge if you didn’t have the reins in hand.

He rapped on the door of the barn, somewhat surprised that he hadn’t intercepted the lord of Pottsfield on the borders of the Woods. In addition to his nightly perimeter sweeps, Enoch was one of of those inexplicable sorts that had ideas about hospitality and hostliness. Mostly it took the form of tentacles wrapped around the Beast and teasing offers of lantern oil, but every now and then it was the promise of a dark corner in the barn for a few moments off his feet, or a bite of an apple or a sip of wine, or a place near the bonfire, to warm his cold-cracked bones. He didn’t have any bones, but he supposed he appreciated the offer.

Thinking of it, the touching should probably stop. The souls he’d wedged up around his shoulders he’d had to move down to his feet and batter back into submission, after all the soft brushes from those ribbons. Those souls had ached and squawked in his mind when he left, the last time, and that was simply inappropriate.

“Come on in,” a voice from within the barn welcomed.

The Beast slipped through the door and hung back towards the corners of the barn, keeping to the shadows.

“Hope-Eater! There you are. That letter got to you faster than I anticipated,” Enoch said.

The Harvest King had been hanging from the rafters in all his unsettling splendor, but now he pulled his streamers out of the rafters and stood under his own power, starting to sway slightly. The cloth ribbons swished quietly across the barn floor, hanging flat and relaxed. The hay and apple scent of the barn was musky and dry beneath the intoxicating molasses smell of the king of the peaceful dead. The Beast fought to keep his head against the fragrance, frost crackling in his fur and dizzy souls jangling beneath his shadows.

“It was a surprise,” the Beast remarked, peering into the dim corners of the barn and darting his gaze back to the maypole. He didn’t think Enoch had any reason or desire to spring something strange on him, but he didn't like being in the barn. Too much dead tree and still air.

Enoch leaned down towards the ground, closing the space between them and swaying his two foremost tentacles. “Was it a pleasant surprise?”

“Well, I’m never happy to lose my possessions,” he replied, “but I appreciate you letting me know, Harvest King.”

There was nothing in this barn that belonged to him. He owned three things: himself, his lantern, and whichever of his lantern bearers still moved. He knew where all three of them were, and they were quite secure.

“Always. Let me lead you to it,” Enoch said.

The Harvest King rose to his full height and pressed some tentacles to the barn door, shoving it open. Others wrapped around the Beast’s shoulders and pulled the Voice of the Night closer to the undulating side of the maypole, almost taking his feet from under him.

“I can’t tell you how pleased I am for you,” Enoch murmured, dipping his head low. One of the Beast’s antlers grazed across his eye and pushed him back a little. The Beast winced to himself and tilted his head to keep them out of the way. Enoch smiled wider and leaned closer still. “I was beginning to think you truly had no interest in these things, but I’m glad to see I was wrong.”

The Beast looked at him curiously and let himself be steered out of the barn.

Enoch swayed as he moved down the path towards the little red-roofed houses, ribbons rippling across the ground. The tentacles slid and brushed across the Beast's shoulders and neck as they followed their owner’s motions. The souls in his shoulders thrilled and strained towards the petting ribbons, moaning forlornly in the back of his mind.

He beat them down and froze them out.

“It’s not for everyone, of course,” Enoch went on. “But I do think you’re deserving of this kind of attention, Hope-Eater, and I hope it’s a source of some peace and pleasure for you. I find it immensely comforting, myself.”

The Beast frowned. “What are you talking about?”

Enoch chuckled, molasses and an apple’s tart skin coming off of him in waves. It smelled good. The Beast clenched his jaw. He felt his lantern burning as bright as it ever did, away in the woods, but still he felt something gnawing in his abdomen. He could stand to eat another turtle.

Physical hunger was so strange, so distracting.

“I understand that if you’re unaccustomed to it, you might feel a bit shy at first,” Enoch murmured, tapping him on the chest with some ribbons. “It’s quite a shift in thinking and maybe just a little self-aggrandizing. You’re something of a loner, so I suppose it must be a little startling to suddenly have so many people in your hip pocket.”

“What?”

“Is this your first time?” Enoch asked, lowering his voice as if in consideration for outside ears. “To own the truth, I find that even old experiences, enough centuries apart from repetition, feel unfamiliar enough to seem new again. In any event, I guarantee you that however wrong-footed you feel at the moment, this is a very good thing. It will enrich your existence beyond what you could ever imagine. You might even grow to love them.”

The Beast pulled away from the tentacles and stopped in the middle of the dirt road. “Talk sense, Prince of Paradise,” he snapped. “What are you going on about?”

Enoch laughed and swayed, tentacles curling and unfurling in the night air.

“I’m the last person you need to be shy of, Beast,” he said, singing the words just a bit. “I mean, look around!  I of all people should be perfectly delighted for you, and I am. Why, I should be thinking of a new title for you, shouldn’t I?  Something as lovely as what you call me.”

“Enoch--”

“We’re here,” Enoch said, and curled a tentacle into a fist. He knocked on the door of one of the red-roofed houses and waited.

A very large turkey answered the door.

The Beast stared at the turkey.

Pottsfield was a very queer place.

The turtle gobbled interrogatively at Enoch.

“Tell Mr. Summers and his guest that we’re arrived,” Enoch said. “We’ll meet them out here.”

The turkey gobbled again.

Enoch looked at the Beast. “Little wine, neighbor?”

“No,” the Beast said.

“No, thank you, Clifton,” Enoch said to the turkey. The turkey bobbed its head and retreated into the little house.

Instants later, a blur of dark skirts and harried hands came flying out of the cottage. A mortal, all skin and hair and dark blue dress, looked around in a panic before spotting the Beast. She released an almost animal cry and threw herself on the ground before him, forehead to the dirt and hands clutching the earth near his feet.

She then commenced to mumbling and the Beast just gawped.

Enoch brushed the side of his own face with a ribbon, contemplating the lady on the ground.

“The devotion is touching,” he said in a register that the Beast was quite certain was below mortal hearing.

A Pottsfielder came out, adjusting the glasses pushed into the eyeholes of his pumpkin head and brushing down his waistcoat. “Enoch, good evening. And you must be the Horned One--pleasure to make your acquaintance. I’ve heard so much.”

“Mr. Summers has been keeping an eye on this dear lady--what was her name again?--while we waited for you to come,” Enoch explained. 

“Elynoer,” Mr. Summers said.

"Yes," Enoch nodded.  "And Horned One!" he added in that low tone.  "A very good name."

Elynoer, apparently finished with her ritual, reached trembling fingers towards his fur, but dared not touch.

“My Lord, my God,” she mewled, shaking violently, “give me leave to rise? I beseech thee, Lord, give me leave?”

“Yes,” the Beast said.

Elynoer whimpered and kissed the earth, and rose to sit back on her heels and bow her head before him, hands planted flat against the ground.

“My Lord,” she said, “I thought I would not find you. Master Blackwell says the only way to walk with you is to be your chosen, as he is, but I could not stay if--” Her voice choked off in a sob.

“I think she’s had a pretty rough time of it,” Mr. Summers observed sagely.  "Poor dear."

“Thank you for everything you've done, Mr. Summers, you’ve been very, very helpful,” Enoch murmured. “I think it’s probably best to let them have some time alone, don’t you agree?”

“Of course, Enoch. Just let me know if you need anything.” The Pottsfielder disappeared within the house and left the three on the darkened road.

Enoch nodded his head, again speaking to the Beast in that confidential register. “Early years can be so hard, until you can get out to just the allegory of blood. They need blood for faith at first, I’m not sure why, but it’s a hard road to hoe.”

“Please, my Lord, have mercy,” she pleaded. Tears were streaming down her face. “Have mercy on us. Thomas was taken in the Singing Days, and then William and John just these last months, and Henry lost his wits and walked out into the night, but I beg you--let me keep Rose and Martyn and Roger! Let a mother have some mercy! Let a wife keep her husband!”

The Beast made a very quiet, low noise of complete befuddlement. He looked at Enoch and watched the Harvest King’s expression shift from beaming pride to dawning concern.

"Please, my Lord, my God," the woman cried.  "I've prayed to you, I've given up my blood, my hair, laid in the snow and prayed, fasted, just to beg for mercy!  Please!  I beseech you, Lord, make me strong enough to do your will and keep my children!  Let me keep them, please, have mercy, o my God!"

The Beast adopted that same sub-audible tone that Enoch had used. “I don’t suppose you could do me a favor, Enoch?” he asked.

“I’d be delighted, of course,” Enoch murmured, “but--”

“Wrap some of your tentacles around this woman’s neck,” he said, “and squeeze until she faints.”

Enoch stared at him.

“Give me leave to look upon you, Lord,” Elynoer begged. “Give me leave to see my God before me and I will be blessed among women!”

“Yes,” the Beast said to her.

Elynoer looked up at him. He had no true grasp of the standards for these things but he believed she was probably considered pretty, or at least had once been so. Her long hair was mostly grey and a few patches were missing, and her lips were cracked and split from lack of care. He believed Enoch and Mr. Summers must have cleaned her up, for she had a fresh-scrubbedness about her sallow skin, but blood did not move quick in Elynoer’s veins.

Pathetic, really.

“Please, my Lord God,” she begged. She lifted two handfuls of earth to her face and rubbed them into her eyes. “Please. Have mercy on us.”

The Beast glanced at Enoch. The Harvest King was still staring at him.

“Please choke her,” the Beast said, gesturing at the sobbing woman. His voice was tight with embarrassment. If only he had the strength himself...! “I can't quite...not by myself, but it would be a mercy to both of us if you would please put her out.”

Enoch looked at him somewhat askance, but his tentacles came out and slid gently around the woman’s neck. They didn’t snap taut or shake or anything so dramatic, but in a mere nine seconds the woman’s sobs stopped and her body grew heavy.

“Thank you,” the Beast said, reaching out and touching the Harvest King’s ribbons. He helped uncoil them from around the lady’s neck, feeling her breath re-enter her body, and stood up, shaking off the humiliation.

Enoch was looking at him.

“I told them,” the Beast said. “I specifically told them. I told the reliable little parson that in exchange for his service as a bearer, I’d not cull his flock. And I told the greedy little warlock that in return for his oil, I’d give him power in the community, let him use my name as a threat. I had one rule. One rule, Enoch.”

“Did you, now?” the Harvest King echoed. “And what was that?”

“No cults!” the Beast growled. “No cults, churches, organizations, sects, mysteries, cabals, covens, factions, bodies, denominations, or movements! I told them! Keep your eyeless three-part God and leave me alone!”

“So you don’t want this,” Enoch observed.

“Always a source of penetrating insight, Harvest King, yes, thank you,” the Beast snapped. “Cults are impossible to handle! They expect things from you after death! They expect rewards and preferential treatment! And for what? No service! No labor! They do nothing more than try to live spiritually. To live well!”

He waved a hand at the unconscious woman. “They’re dust! Every mortal does its best to live well, whether I like it or not! Why should I value their incompetent floundering so much as to restrain myself from harvesting them as I see fit?”

"And your agreement with the lantern-bearer is different?” Enoch asked.  His face looked skeptical.

“A deal,” the Beast sneered with a dismissive flick of his wrist. “Nothing different from a mother agreeing to trade her life for the life of her child. I get the labor I need out of him and he keeps his flock safe from me.”

“Ever generous, my friend,” Enoch sighed.

“I should’ve known better than to tolerate a warlock. They can’t leave things be. They have to have a structure for their wickedness, but I thought all he was after was a few pretty wives and a little humiliation of townsfolk.” The Beast snarled. “And this is what he does with my influence! I’m going to go collect on his debt.”

“I see. And this fine lady?”

The Beast rubbed at the edge of his eye socket. “I'll have to bring her with me.  I can’t expect you to take my trash, after all,” he said.

Enoch hummed and swayed a little.  

“And thank you for getting in touch with me so quickly. I hate to think of this spreading out anywhere.”

“Of course. Happy to help, if I can. But I admit I’m a little surprised that you’re so down on cults, Hope-Eater,” Enoch said. “I find that having a church--or, well, let’s call it a community--is very good for me.”

Yes, the Beast was aware of how good it was for Enoch. His souls were aware, too, each and every besotted little one of them.

“I can’t eat like this,” the Beast replied. “She must come into the Woods. She’s despairing, which is good, but she hoped hard enough to seek me out. That does count for something.”

“Very well,” Enoch said. "Let me be a help, then." He reached out his tentacles and picked her up, coiling his ribbons around her as if she was a mere child, supporting her knees and shoulders and tucking her skirts neatly under her.

The Beast nodded his head to him in gratitude and led the way towards the border with the Winter Woods.

“I do hope this hasn’t embarrassed you,” Enoch said as they passed through the corn fields.

“Embarrassed?” the Beast scoffed. “I’m mortified. The scene she made! In the middle of the road!”

“Oh, it was just the two of us. And I certainly won’t say anything.”

“Good, thank you."

Enoch hummed behind him. "And you're very sure you don't want a church? It's not a bad thing, Beast, not really."

"It’s all well and good for you to be a god, Lord of Joy, you're suited to it and you’ve got people you like. But let me stay a monster. All mortals ever beg of me is their lives. They don’t insist I bring them presents on top of it.”

“Mm,” Enoch mused. “I suppose you have a point.”

The Beast nodded and pressed forward through the fields. They reached the borders of the Woods and Enoch put the lady down on the soft grass.

“Here you are,” the Harvest King said. He swayed gently from side to side. “Best of luck with your pest problem.”

The Beast smiled to himself. He wanted to lean towards the lord of Pottsfield.  He wanted to feel the subdued strength of the ribbons wrapped around his shoulders and bask in the sting of...it was something like hunger, but in the reverse; he wanted to feel it trickle hot and sweet down his back.  That is, his souls wanted to.

Instead, he considered the woman on the ground for a moment before bowing his head to Enoch. “Obliged for the lookout, once again.”

“It’s my pleasure. Come back very soon, won’t you?” Enoch smiled, twisting a ribbon as if to beckon. “I want to hear all about how you break that church back down to size.”

The Beast watched the tendril sway for a moment. The air smelled sweet and heavy, alcoholic, and the faint buzzing burn made his mouth want to water like a mortal’s.  The scent was delectable.

“You don’t have a nose, do you?” he blurted out.

Enoch looked at him for a moment and rolled his eyes down to cross. His two grasper tentacles reached up and batted at his face.

“What? Since when? Bless me, I must’ve put it down somewhere silly,” the Harvest King replied.

The Beast huffed and made a little noise of annoyance. Enoch grinned.

“Not in this body, no,” Enoch replied. “Why? Do you?”

“Yes. A very good one. I only wondered if you can smell,” the Beast replied.

“Not like this.” Enoch rippled his tentacles as if to shake them out. “Perhaps you’ll come across me in cat flesh one day and we can rekindle the conversation.”

“Perhaps,” the Beast allowed. He reached down and hefted the woman onto his back. The weight made him creak painfully and loudly. Embarrassing. How had Enoch managed to tote her around as if she were a feather?

“Oh. But then, you’re not much of a dancer, are you?” Enoch said, as if only realizing it. “You don’t gesture much.”

“Mortals are mostly auditory and visual,” the Beast replied. “They don’t need gestures.”

“They are so very helpful, though.” Enoch slowly waved one graceful tendil in a figure-eight. “Good for communication. Encouraging trust."

"That would be your line of work, more than mine."

"Expressing interest.”

The Beast shook his head. “Speaking works fine for me. I really have no need to dance.”

Enoch’s smile twitched very definitively to the side. “Oh, don’t be so sure. There’s a harvest festival coming up and if you only heard Mr. Summers on his violin I bet you’d change your tune.”

The Beast doesn’t even dignify that with a snort. “Goodbye, Harvest King.”

“Goodbye, Hope-Eater. I’ll see you soon.”

Whatever he liked to tell himself. The Beast decided he would not be back for some time, not until he got his souls under better control.

He pulled the woman along into the Woods. He had a glade not a half-mile in that would do for an Edelwood, and she could just sink seamlessly through into that deeper darkness. Nice and tidy.

He was almost at his glade when he intercepted the tail end of a procession pointed towards the Autumn lands. Lit by torches and lanterns they carried, the sallow-skinned, empty-eyed people trudged through the freezing snow. They smelled much like the woman on his back.

A little girl stopped when she saw him. “Mama!” she cried.

A teenage boy with fearful eyes tucked the girl close to his side and a lanky man stepped forward.

"Elynoer?" the man asked.  "Elynoer!"  

He heard the woman moan softly and felt her eyelashes fluttering against his neck.  He tightened his grip on her wrists.

“Damn you.  Give her back,” the man said, staring the Beast down with a face gone hard and stern.

The Beast stared back, surprised. This mortal was either very brave or very desperate.

He heard the woman on his back gasp and as she saw her family.

“Rose! Martyn!” The woman ripped her arms of his grasp and slid down his fur, landing in the snow and sprinting towards her children. He reached after her but the orange-burning hope that lit up around her eyes and heart propelled her forward fast and flight enough that she evaded his hands. “Thank God, oh thank God! You’re spared, you’re alive!”

He watched the family in the snow just a few feet away, guarded by the other members of their town.  He watched the mother and father kiss despite the tears freezing to their cheeks, and watched them stagger to their feet and hurry away from him.

Well, fine. She’d fall into darkness soon enough. Let her go now.

The Beast watched as the family caught up with the train of people walking into Autumn. Going the opposite way, a light bobbed towards the Beast.

At last the final part of the procession disappeared into the trees, and Parson Dixon stood before him. The Beast contemplated his lantern-bearer.

“Where is Blackwell?” the Beast asked. “We need to talk.”

The parson was carrying an axe. He pointed the head of the axe back to the way from which the procession had come.

“In town?” the Beast asked.

Parson Dixon nodded.

“Alive?” the Beast asked, narrowing his eyes.

Parson Dixon flipped his grip on the axe and etched a few symbols in the snow with the handle. EX20:13

“A simple yes or no will suffice,” the Beast sighed.

Parson Dixon nodded his head. He looked into the woods in the direction of Autumn, and looked back at the Beast. He crooked the finger of his right hand at his master and turned away, walking into the Winter Woods.

The Beast followed, curious.

Parson Dixon led him about a quarter mile into the woods, until they stood before a stump. Dixon etched out another message in the snow: MK9:43

The Beast frowned, puzzling over the message, as the parson knelt down and put the lantern on the stump. He put down his axe and slowly pried at the atrophied fingers of his left hand with the agile fingers of his right, picking at the digits permanently clenched and curled.

It was a futile endeavor, though the Beast watched with something like fascination. The parson sighed and gave up the attempt, and used his right hand to roll up his left sleeve. He removed his belt from around his waist and wrapped it loosely around his forearm.

The parson stayed still for a moment, lips moving soundlessly, breath coming out in white-sparkling plumes. When he was finished, he carefully set the lantern on its side, seized the leather of the belt in his teeth and pulled until the band was tight around his arm and the pin of the buckle slid into a fresh-made hole. He picked up his axe and aimed it.

The Beast watched in some surprise as the chop fell sure and true. The parson let out a high, animal little shriek, and tucked his new-formed stump against his chest as it gushed a burst of red and then dripped slowly, the flow stopped by the tourniquet. The left hand clutched lifelessly at the handle of the lantern.

The parson breathed hard through his teeth for a moment or two, before picking up his axe once more and holding it down at his side. He gave the Beast one last look before trudging back into the Woods and towards the Autumn lands with the rest of his flock.

The Beast stood contemplating the lantern for a moment. He reached out and touched the hand, and it withered into a brown claw beneath his caress. He pried it laboriously off of the lantern handle and hung the light from his antler before tucking the hand beneath his fur. His fingers brushed the letter from Pottsfield as he moved, and the faint scent of maple syrup touched the broken air.

This all gave him an idea.

***

With the possible exception of the enormous, gnarled, splintered, gouged, cracked, and twisted Edelwood tree standing in the center of the ruined church, the building was really very like most other ruins in the Winter Wild. The heavy chains wrapped around two of its biggest branches and pulled tight up to the far walls made for an unusual little detail, perhaps, but altogether the ruin was destined to be not particularly remarkable.

But that was in the future. For now, it was very, very remarkable indeed, if only for the screams. The Beast wasn’t much in the habit of actually trying to keep things alive. It was refreshing, in a way.

Later, as he looked over some of the trimmings the Beast has taken from his arborary project, Enoch pronounced his conviction that the Beast has a positive flare for bonsai sculpting.

He had to leave soon after that. He was appalled by how complimented he felt.


End file.
